THREE DECADES AGO, Chinese archeologists found an ancient book written on 800 strips of bamboo. It was more than 23 centuries old.
The text was identified as a partial copy of the Tao Te Ching (道德經), the book on which Taoism (or Daoism) is based—and which introduced the world to the classic Chinese sage Laozu…

Chinese history
GOLD ISN’T JUST BEAUTIFUL AND RARE. It is also durable. No historian can document every detail of history, but burial objects in gold often tell a story better than other records.
Thanks to the generous donation from the owners of Mengdiexuan (夢蝶軒), Betty Lo(盧茵茵) and Kenneth Chu (朱偉基), the public has the opportunity to remember…
SURVIVING ZODIAC HEAD STATUES from a glorious imperial garden destroyed by British and French soldiers in the Opium War in 1860 are on show at City University of Hong Kong.
The Old Summer Palace, known as Yuanmingyuan (圓明園), was a huge area, covering more than 3.5 square kilometres of land in Beijing. Historians say it…
IT WAS EXTRAORDINARILY RISKY to be the brother of Yinzhen (胤禛), the fourth son of Emperor Kangxi (康熙帝).
Yinzhen wanted the throne really badly. A cold-blooded man, he imprisoned some of his 23 brothers and killed one who had the same mother as he did. He wanted to get rid of competition to become the…
CATS AT THE FORBIDDEN CITY in Beijing have become celebrities. They now regularly appear in TV programs and on social media.
They also count as part of the historical tale of the complex.
In ancient times, emperors and other royal family members owned cats which they pampered, just like modern cat-lovers. In the Ming…
MEET AN ACTUAL COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBER. When teacher Ye Lianping hit retirement age, he felt he was still able to contribute to society, but had been left behind by the world.
So he turned part of his home into a school and re-started work as a teacher, focusing on children “left behind” by society because…
Could I get mansions covering ten thousand miles,
I’d house all scholars poor and make them beam with smiles.
In wind and rain these mansions would stand like mountains high.
Alas! Should these houses appear before my eye,
Frozen in my unroofed cot, content I’d die.
-- the poem “My Thatched Hut was torn apart…
It started with a death in the river, the legend says. But no one could predict the scale of the repercussions - which are marked today, more than 22 centuries later, with international sports events. The original festival has deep mainland Chinese roots, but was popularized worldwide by the people of Hong Kong. The…
IN EARLY APRIL this year, I went on a trip to Wuhan in Hubei Province (湖北武漢). At the Hubei Provincial Museum, I found a long queue in front of a collection. Out of curiosity, I approached the attractive treasure, and found long tin-bronze sword in front of me. It was the “Sword of Goujian” (越王勾踐劍),…
CAN GUAN GONG boost your business, get you through your exams, turn you into a success story? Hundreds of millions of people in East Asia think so.
Shopkeepers have his statue on their counters. Business people have him in their high-tech offices. Restaurateurs have him in their dining halls. Hong Kong police believe he can…
